Articles in the Internet Category

The DC Circuit yesterday dismissed the appeals of the FCC Net Neutrality order filed by Verizon and MetroPCS on the grounds that they were filed prematurely – no appeal can be taken until the order is published in the Federal Register, an event that has not yet occurred.
It would be a mistake to regard this as a defeat for the companies. Their decision to file an appeal at this point was a precautionary move taken because of the complex procedural tangle that surrounds issues of finality and appealability. [For the …

Tim Berners-Lee has declared that content should be free and open to all Internet users and that any variation is a violation of the principle of network neutrality. The sentiment is quite different than his explanation of net neutrality some years back.

Netflix has added some manual control features to the quality of Netflix video streams for Canadian customers who want to stay within their usage caps. To see how this might apply to some US broadband plans with 250 GB or 150 GB usage caps, I’ve generated the following table for daily and monthly allowances.

The 150 GB cap applies to AT&T’s slower DSL customers while the 250 GB plan applies to AT&T U-Verse and Comcast cable broadband. Note that for customers not on U-Verse using the older DSL technology, it is …

There was a recent article by Sam Biddle called “Facebook is AOLifying the Internet – and That Sucks”. It’s a pretty accurate take on what Facebook has become over the last few years as it considers many of the new features that Facebook has both developed and ripped off. The article itself was probably a slight ripoff of one that John C. Dvorak had produced some months earlier, “Facebook is the New AOL,” that was essentially in the same vein.

Dennis Wharton of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) is irked by the wireless industry comments to eliminate spectrum waste and he wants to draw attention to the wireless industry’s own dirty laundry. Wharton points out that Dish Network and Time Warner Cable might be hoarding some of their auctioned spectrum to speculate on future value and that there is potentially $15 billion dollars of spectrum being hoarded. But even if there is $15 billion of spectrum hoarding (and much of that spectrum will eventually be used), it does not …

Comodo, a company you probably never heard of which holds one of the many master keys to the Internet’s SSL X.509 Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) system, admitted that their root certificate authorities have been compromised by attackers. Those attackers issued themselves SSL certificates for seven companies including Google, Skype, and Yahoo so they can fully masquerade as one of the seven companies with legitimate looking SSL certificates. Comodo responded by revoking those certificates, but that won’t offer full protection until every device on the planet replicates the revocations and we have …

Challenges in Using the National Broadband Map’s Data
George S. Ford, PhD
Phoenix Center
March 2011
Ford takes a look at the information gathered by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration after the goals set by 2009’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Ford says that the data gathered will allow for the quantification of socio-economic factors and broadband availability across the nation.
Even though he feels that the NTIA should be praised in their efforts, there is concern that the mapping data carries with it errors, and there is more concern that there even exists …

In a newly announced partnership with Sprint, Google potentially stands to gain 50 million US customers for its web integrated voice service, voice mail, and long distance calling. In the context of Google’s growing dominance in smartphones with Android OS, Google is shaping up to be a significant player in the phone market.

Do Not Track, the application of using a http field that would require applications on the Internet to turn off their tracking features has been a hotly debated issue in tech circles and amongst privacy concerned citizens.

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